Edit: Changed to a non-plagerizing link
Yes, but you have to consider the poor CEO’s and middle managers. They need to be able to strut around an office full of people and feel important. Plus there’s all that office space they leased for the next 30 years at a discount that they need to fill with workers to justify the expense!!
It cruel to only consider the happiness of the slave class while ignoring the plight of the ruling class. Don’t you people know that?!?!?
During the pandemic our office was inspected and structurally condemned, so we literally have nowhere to go back to, the building is now a car park. It’s great.
I wholeheartedly recommend black mould and a leaky roof to anyone that doesn’t want to go back, it might be hard to arrange but it definitely works.
No shit.
The very fact that it is something that the workers want
Is WHY Employers want to halt it.
Too many Employers believe that anything the workers want is necessarily bad for Businesses … BECAUSE the workers want it
Must be banned!!! How dare Americans have a tiny bit of happiness. We must crush this before it gets out of control.
Not that shocking. Hell, there are millions of Americans who would kill just to work indoors. Office work is the envy of every farm and trade worker with aching feet and knees and various injuries they have to nurse while they labor. Working at home??? It’s absolute luxury.
Office work is the envy of every farm and trade worker
This isn’t exactly true. There are, believe it or not, people who prefer to work outdoors and do heavy labor. Especially farm work. Some people aren’t really suited for office work. (pun intended)
A bit disingenuous to skip the part where their bodies are falling apart and they’re in constant pain.
Just gaining back all the commute time everyday is such a huge bonus for me. Nothing at an office can compare to that alone. And I get to add in a ton of other nice bonuses from being at home.
It may seem silly, but aside from commuting time the biggest advantage for me was being able to use my own bathroom. No bidets in the office washroom!
Working from home has been the default for the last few millenia. Who would have thought that it could make people happier?
I both agree and disagree with the conclusions in the title…
I agree that for many people, they’re happier, and likely more productive, working from home.
I would also agree that for many different people, working from an office makes them happier/more productive.
It entirely depends on the job, who you are, and the work culture. Some places are toxic and working from home to get away from it is helpful for job satisfaction. I’ve known people who simply focus better when they’re at the office since they have a lot of distractions at home. I know for me, the opposite is true. at home, I’m in control and can limit exposure to distractions, and I can be more productive, more comfortable and overall less unhappy with my job.
IMO, this discussion is less about what companies want, whether work from home or hybrid, or in office … The main conclusion that we should be driving home is that different people need different environments to do their best work, and be happiest with their particular job. To put it simply: workers need to be able to choose.
Until we’re at the stage where employers care less about how, and where you do the work, and they care more about the work getting done… We’re going to keep going back and forth on this.
I like to work from home. That’s me.
I know people who prefer to work from an office. There’s plenty of people who feel they work best from the office.
There’s plenty of people that need to mix between home and office work.
Bluntly: as long as you can do the work from where you’re working, and how you’re working, the rest should be flexible. We’re (presumably) adults and professionals. If we’re given work and we’re being paid to do the work, then we will do the work. We don’t need to be constantly supervised by middle management like toddlers.
I like to work from home. That’s me.
And there is, as it turns out, a lot of people like that. Doesn’t actually mean everyone is like that. But it does mean that being given this option, we, as humanity and as workers, are happier.
Your reply reminds me that “I’m not pro-life or pro-choice, I just want people to be able to chose do they want to have an abortion or not”.Add to this that your preference may change as your life does. Lifestage makes a big difference.
I am more productive and less depressed working from site and if i work too much from home I get depressed and adhd kicks in and paralizes me.
I don’t see how it benefits everyone not to allow people to work from home at the same time.
This is me too. I love my home. I’ve lived here a long time and have made this my ideal little place on the planet.
I can be ridiculously hyperfocused and productive on my personal hobby projects at home. However, I cannot get jack shit done for work. I still like to work from home fairly often, but I go into the office on a regular basis. Fortunately, I live close to the office.
Tl:dr “Nah-uh, not me.”
It’s also nice eating out of your own fridge, using your own toilet, and everything else.
Bidet, and that’s all I’ll say
A moist towelette, that’s all you’ll get
Agreed, thanks COVID(I guess?)
I could tolerate going in to the office if I had my own bathroom.
from a “managing people” standpoint it’s a little easier (at least in my field) too, because it becomes obvious when someone’s product is shit if I’m paying attention
also i really like shitting at home
Too bad that happiness is banned in the USA…
What a silly thing to say. It’s merely prohibitively expensive. I mean, reasonably priced and readily available for those that deserve it.
D E S E R V E
All in a monthly subscription service.
I thought it was a pay-per-smile subscription…
Oooh we didn’t think of that. We just changed it to a subscription that you then also pay an a la carte fee for. This is somehow better for the consumer because of reasons.
Happiness breeds self esteem, self esteem breeds confidence, confidence breeds learning. Education, confidence, self esteem, and happiness are all antithetical to fear and obedience. We’re much easier to rule if we’re stressed out. Plus, the real reason for return to office is real estate value. It has nothing to do with worker morale or productivity.
To be fair the pursuit of happiness in and of itself is an uncatchable carrot used to push the capitalist agenda. Happy moments are like sprinkles on a doughnut, few and far between. Contentment is what we should really be shooting for.
Yea sucks, they banned compassion and kindness too
I propose that the mods should take this post down, or at least point to the original post, that cmu.fr has obviously plagiarized.
Here is what seems to be the original post: https://indiandefencereview.com/theyve-observed-teleworking-for-four-years-and-reached-one-clear-conclusion-working-from-home-makes-us-happier/
The big difference is that the original article actually points to the study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35379616/ where as the cmu.fr plagiarized version makes no reference whatsoever to the study. Just vague slop about “scientists”.
That said, I think that even the original article miscaracterizes the paper. Here is the paper abstract:
Objectives: To investigate the impacts, on mental and physical health, of a mandatory shift to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design: Cross sectional, online survey.
Setting: Online survey was conducted from September 2020 to November 2020 in the general population.
Participants: Australian residents working from home for at least 2 days a week at some time in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Main outcome measures: Demographics, caring responsibilities, working from home arrangements, work-related technology, work-family interface, psychosocial and physical working conditions, and reported stress and musculoskeletal pain.
Results: 924 Australians responded to the online questionnaire. Respondents were mostly women (75.5%) based in Victoria (83.7%) and employed in the education and training and healthcare sectors. Approximately 70% of respondents worked five or more days from home, with only 60% having a dedicated workstation in an uninterrupted space. Over 70% of all respondents reported experiencing musculoskeletal pain or discomfort. Gendered differences were observed; men reported higher levels of family to work conflict (3.16±1.52 to 2.94±1.59, p=0.031), and lower levels of recognition for their work (3.75±1.03 to 3.96±1.06, p=0.004), compared with women. For women, stress (2.94±0.92 to 2.66±0.88, p<0.001) and neck/shoulder pain (4.50±2.90 to 3.51±2.84, p<0.001) were higher than men and they also reported more concerns about their job security than men (3.01±1.33 to 2.78±1.40, p=0.043).
Conclusions: Preliminary evidence from the current study suggests that working from home may impact employees’ physical and mental health, and that this impact is likely to be gendered. Although further analysis is required, these data provide insights into further research opportunities needed to assist employers in optimising working from home conditions and reduce the potential negative physical and mental health impacts on their employees.
Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; risk management.
So, long story short: this article is slop, copied from another piece of slop that mischaracterized a study. Overall: meh.
And that study is based on surveys… Literally the lowest possible quality information metric.
Hey @cm0002@lemmy.world want to show a post your way - confirm receipt if ya ‘round?
Always appreciate your posts!
Thanks, I missed the above reply, this was a crosspost, so I’ve broken that crosspost to change the link to something not plagiarized
@theacharnian@lemmy.ca don’t we love Lemmy
cm ❤️
With that, survey data are some of the poorest quality data.
We’ve had this capacity for several decades now, and it seems ridiculous that our culture has not fully embraced it with open arms. If that’s not a sign that “we the people” aren’t running the show, I don’t know what is. Freedom my ass.
As someone who worked from home for almost a decade before being pulled into the office, I regularly got flack from my peers for it as well as older boomer types. IME, people who are forced into the office frequently feel a sense of “fairness” where they want everyone else to come in as well.
“If I have to be miserable, you should too”
Due to how isolating our culture and urban planning has become, a lot of people have started using their work as a replacement for their social life. Without it they realize just how caged they are under this system, so they refuse it. They think being given more free time and the ability to do work from the comfort of their own home is a bad thing because it takes away their social outlet.
People have to do what’s best for them. If they need to commute to a job to have a social life, let them. This is absolutely not a reason to force other people to do it.
Of course it isn’t but you are the one who said that it was ridiculous that we haven’t embraced it.
It isn’t ridiculous. It’s actually pretty expected of the society we have built to be against it. There are perfectly explainable reasons why we have yet to embrace it.
I don’t say this to tell you it shouldn’t change. I’m saying this to specifically highlight the things we need to change so that no one will be forced into doing it.
People do need to do what’s best, so we should probably fix things so that being forced to use office work as a replacement for a social life isn’t the best option people have available to them.
I know a few boomers who are against it. They think that online work is not real work and that people who work remote are lazy bums who should get a “real job”. They’re the same type of people who went insane during the lockdowns instead of enjoying the free vacation.
Yeah my boomer dad (materials scientist in the civilian nuclear sector) disagrees. He’s been working from home (and from vacations sometimes…) at least a few days a week for quite a while now, and his old boss was apparently saying that they were going to need to hire 3 people to replace him when he eventually retires.
FWIW I also know some elder millennials who are against it, but I’ve seen how they run their business and let’s just say I wouldn’t take advice from them.
Boomer here, software developer, I started fighting the telecommuting battle with managers in the early 90s. They’d say, “We need you here.” I’d ask, “Why? I can dial in. You have contractors in India you’ve never even met, and that works out fine.” “That’s different.” “How?” They never could come up with valid reasons why we really needed to physically be there, and would generally shut down the conversation with like, “Well, I can see we don’t agree on this.” Correct, and 30 years later they’re still making the same ludicrous arguments.
In my experience, after a little back and forth they realize they can’t win this on facts and just pull rank.
Work, and society in general, isn’t meant to make us happier.
Right, remember that whole line of the American dream? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of quarterly profits.
Fuck you.
It fuckin should be. We are all here for a blink of an eye on a spinning rock next to uncontrollable chaos. Let us enjoy the ride and quit squabbling over which idol is right or who has the most manufactured wealth.
Correct. I am merely relaying my observations.
Someone has to provide proof for the answers to obvious questions, if for no other reason than to short circuit the “SoUrCe?” clowns.
Exactly. It’s never a bad thing to have hard data on what we think is obvious.
Especially since it’s not uncommon for what’s ‘obvious’ to be wrong.
A hard truth is that if you see an executive pushing return to office, you know one of two things about them. One of the following is true.
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They are terrible at finance and don’t understand the sunk-cost fallacy. They have to keep using that building they bought; they’ve spent so much on it and simply can’t bring themselves to sell it.
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They’re a sexual molester. They’re someone that uses the power of their position to coerce sex out of their employees. Fucking their employees is their primary motivation for not retiring early right now. You can’t coerce your secretary to give you a blowjob over Zoom.
That’s really it. They’re either bad at business or they’re a sexual predator. If you see an executive pushing return to office, be sure to ask them which one of these they are. Because they’re definitely one or the other.
- Tradition.
- Belief that work-from-home is less efficient.
Those are both covered under ‘bad at business’.
As well as being a sexual monster. A lot of tradition is built around reinforcement of sexist gender roles.
So
- They’re morons and terrible at business.
- Remote didn’t work as well for the company.
- Remote didn’t work as well for any number of people at that company.
Found the executive.
We have work from home, i have gone to the office twice this year. But it is true it didn’t work for everyone. Some left because of isolation factor, some fired because without anyone watching they just could not self motivate. In some case in-office meetings are way more productive, and you get those moments when a coworker overhears your convo and chimes in with something relevent that you would never have connection on in WFH
“Isolation factor” = you talk to people all day and don’t actually do anything productive
I was being sensitive, we had some employees struggle mentally with being alone and without interaction. Some people did not have partners at home, so work was their contact with the world. With that gone, issues arose.
But I get your point, I prefer work from home because I get twice as much done without the daily interruptions of "Hello, how are you, wanna see pictures of my jetski, did you watch the game? (Me: game?, I don’t even know what game they mean)
While there are a few that work better in an office, the overwhelming majority work better at home. Why should we force everyone to suffer for the handful of folks who can’t self-motivate at home? We don’t bend over backwards to cater to people who say, have auditory issues that make working in a crowded open-plan office debilitating. We tell those folks to go die in a fire if they can’t handle an office environment. Plenty of people can’t work in an office, but that was never been seen as an argument to get rid of offices.
Honestly I think your first point is just a subset of something larger and even more basic - “we’ve always done it this way. Change is scawwy. Different bad. Are you implying I was wrong before?” Etc.
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